MAK Center Artists and Architects

Concluding their six-month live/work residencies in Los Angeles, the 22nd group of MAK Center for Art & Architecture Artists and Architects in Residence present the exhibit Center. Opening Wednesday, September 6 from 7 – 9 p.m. and on view through Sunday, September 10, the exhibition will include photographs, drawings, site documentation, maps, video and interactive media by Alfredo Barsuglia, Wulf Walter Boettger, Andreas Fogarasi and Sonja Vordermaier.

Alfredo Barsuglia In Esthetic Dentistry in Los Angeles, Alfredo Barsuglia investigates the role teeth play as a status symbol in this city of fame and beauty. With a population of 3.9 million, L.A. has more than 1,600 dentists. Barsuglia has created a full-color book including images of 60 advertising signs for esthetic dentistry, as well as interviews with several dentistry professionals and a sociologist. He will also present a sign for a fictitious dentistry office that has been publicly displayed, and the recordings it engendered on a telephone answering machine. This project has emerged from previous themes in Barsuglia’s work, Food and Oral Hygiene.

Andreas Fogarasi During his residency, Fogarasi has created a series of works researching different notions of “public” in Los Angeles. As part of his ongoing project Public Brands, he has identified the branding strategies used by cities and real estate companies to represent highly socially-segregated parts of the region. In Donor Recognition, Fogarasi focuses on the ubiquitous signage in cultural institutions acknowledging financial supporters. Using frottage (graphite rubbing), the artist transforms these displays of economic power and vanity into shades and patterns of gray. He will also show sculptures based on creative industries’ informational displays.

Wulf Walter Boettger Identifying the conflict between Los Angeles’ emphasis on beauty and the omnipresent expectations of apocalypse, Boettger attempts to grasp this dialect in Trauma (n) Desire. In the first part of his project, he focuses on an intricate, 1690 anatomical drawing by Govaert Bidloo, the dissection of a head cleft by trauma. Using architectural animation software and 3-D printing technology, he has created a model derived from Bidloo’s drawing. As a complement, he will employ the silicone material used to simulate skin in life-size “love dolls” as a covering for Schindler House interior walls. In the presence of a naked doll, the “skin” materials will exploit an artificial material to add an animate, tactile dimension to Schindler’s spaces.

Sonja Vordermaier In Carmada, Sonja Vordermaier explores the notion of Los Angeles as a steadily moving city. On Saturday, August 26, along with 14 other local and international artists, Vordermaier spent a day driving through neighborhoods and on freeways in cars decked out as self-contained, mini art exhibitions. The car projects employed sound, collage, interactivity and more engaging in themes of the car-as-living-room and symbol of freedom, identity and privacy. The day concluded with a parking lot party and film screening. In Final Projects, the artist will present photographic and film documentation of the Carmada expedition.

Pressetext

MAK Center Artists and Architects in Residence
MAK Center for Art and Architecture / Schindler House

mit Alfredo Barsuglia, Wulf Walter Boettger, Andreas Fogarasi, Sonja Vordermaier